


You're Gonna Be Alright

by ClaireofAppalachia



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, No Age of Ultron, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-Winter Soldier, Recovery, Romance, bucky is with the avengers, just go with it, only avengers in this are steve sam and natasha, or civil war
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-08-10 00:48:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20126608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaireofAppalachia/pseuds/ClaireofAppalachia
Summary: It was just another rescue mission, but it turned out to be something bigger. In more ways than one. Now Bucky finds himself caught up in not only a new HYDRA plot, but also with a victim who needs someone who can understand. Together, can they work through their trauma and evade HYDRA? And what happens when things become more complicated for the both of them, in life and in each other?





	You're Gonna Be Alright

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I was super unhappy with the previous chapters I'd written for this, so I decided to to re-do them! Hopefully they'll be longer, and better written. If you have any thoughts, lemme here them!

These were, without a doubt, Bucky’s least favorite missions. Taking down a HYDRA base that was just for training or hiding officers? Easy peas-y. But HYRDA bases that were for “scientific research purposes” were never easy. They usually ended up with labs full of bodies in various states of decay. Sometimes those bodies were still alive. And as it was, there was not a single case of the Avengers or what was left of SHIELD rescuing someone who lasted more than 2 days before dying. Not exactly an encouraging statistic.

Sure, things had been easier since SHIELDs massive data spill that revealed a plethora of HYDRA bases, officials, sleeper agents, and researchers, as well as where exactly to find them. Since then, it had simply been a game of picking where to hit next, how to hit it, and what to do with the prisoners (should there even be any left). But that didn’t mean things weren’t still aggravatingly difficult. HYDRA was like a roach infestation. If you didn’t check every corner, fumigate every room, could you really be sure you got them all?

Today, the mission prerogative was pretty simple. A HYDRA research base, unknown human experimentation, expect 20 highly armed and trained guards, 5 scientists, and anywhere from 5 – 10 human test subjects. It made Bucky’s stomach roll. Steve had always told him there was no obligation for him to infiltrate these bases, or even _go_ for that matter. But Bucky always insisted. He was going to take out every last HYDRA bastard that he could, and he wanted the last thing they saw to be his face. It offered him a sort of grim satisfaction, to know that those complicit in his own personal 70 year hell would go out seeing the Soldier’s face before they themselves hit hell.

And so that’s where he was today. Deep in an underground bunker in New Jersey, disturbingly close to New York City. Topside, it looked like any other shut down textile factory, but below ground it was a massive labyrinth of labs and computers.

They had gone in as a small team. Steve, Natasha, Sam, and himself. He was glad it was just the four of them, it meant less people to get in the way, to worry about. He’d broken off on his own, and now here he was, alone in a solid concrete and metal hall, his eyes scanning every shadow and corner. So far he had met with seven guards, each one of them a relatively easy kill. It’d been too quiet for the last few minutes, though. He was getting jumpy, and that was dangerous. Stalking forward, his ears were intensely focused on the world around him.

He heard a small sound, a boot shifting on the ground, several paces behind him. He whirled around in time to see an agent lift and aim, but never getting the chance to fire. A bullet found itself lodged in between the man’s eyes, and he hit the ground with a thud. Bucky stopped and listened. There was no more sound, no more boot scuffling or the clicking of a gun. Only the sound of his own breathing and his heartbeat echoing in his ears.

There was a corner coming up, and he approached it slowly, cautiously. Peaking around, he saw only emptiness. He moved like a cat, minding where he stepped, how he held his posture. A tight spring ready to release if anything so much as moved. But no shadows shifted, and no guns cocked. Abandoned. He let out a small breath, and that’s when the smell hit.

Antiseptic, rotting flesh, urine, shit, vomit, sweat, bleach. It nearly made him gag, not just from the stench, but from the memories. Smell is one of the most powerful memory triggers out there, and boy if that wasn’t true. The memory of bone saws, bite guards, and needles, so many needles. It almost knocked him off his feet every time he caught a whiff of it. Almost.

So, he’d found the labs. The brief had said anywhere from 5 – 10 people. Glancing down the hall, he could pick out five doors on each side of the hallway. Six of them were shut tight, four were hanging ajar. Those four had to have been evacuated in a hurry. Of course. The scientists. They would’ve gotten out first, priority evacuation. _Damn it_. The scientists were valuable. They had the real information, and it was interesting, to see how they broke under the same torture they dished out. He was about to move forward, wondering if he could still catch any of them, when he heard a door click.

He vanished back behind the corner in the blink of an eye, his gun raised and ready. He watched as a middle-aged, bald man stepped out of the second door on the left, before turning and fumbling with the lock. He listened to the man’s quiet mumbling as his no doubt sweaty hands fumbled with the mechanism.

“Shit, shit shit shit! Should’ve known those bastards would’ve left me. Fucking useless assholes! ‘Yeah let’s leave Garret behind, he’ll be fine!’ Ugh, buncha’ sons’ of bitches!” Bucky smirked, before coolly stepping out from the corner.

“Don’t move a muscle or I shoot.”

The scientist froze where he was, his mumbling coming to an abrupt end.

“Turn around, slowly.” Bucky ordered, taking a measured step forward. The scientist obeyed, slowly raising his eyes as he turned to face the Soldier he’d heard so much about. What happened next happened very quickly.

Bucky was about to radio to the team that he had a prisoner, and possibly survivors. Then there was the tiniest crunch and Bucky saw the man’s eyes go wide as his jaw twitched just a hair. _Of course_, Bucky realized, feeling more than a little dumb, _suicide pill. _It wasn’t uncommon for HYDRA personnel to have a cyanide pill in a false tooth.

He watched as the man crumpled to the ground, the poison hitting him quickly. There was nothing to be done, and Bucky wasn’t sure he’d bother even if something could be. He stared at the man’s death twitches before the scientist finally collapsed. Still not taking any chances, Bucky fired a single shot into the man’s head. Annoying.

So that left him with five unlocked doors, and five locked ones. He pressed his finger to his ear, activating his comm.

“Steve. Yeah, yeah I’m fine, I found the testing rooms. Five doors open, five shut. There was a scientist left but he offed himself with one of those tooth-cyanide pills. I’m gonna check the five open rooms, meet me down here in 5.” Bucky readjusted his hold on his gun before nudging open the door the scientist had exited out of.

Empty. A padded table, the kind he was all too familiar with was the only thing left in the room other than stains. On to the next room then.

When he opened the door, he felt his stomach clench like it always did when he found someone in a HYDRA lab. Lying on the table was a young woman, in bad shape. A heart monitor attached to her beeped quietly, registering her weak pulse on a screen. She was bruised across her body, her lip was split, and the thin hospital gown covering her did little to hide the emaciation racking her body. Her head had been shaved, and thick clots of blood were exposed through the fuzz.

It always disgusted him, the things HYDRA was willing to do to innocent people. Good people. What had she done to deserve this, what had anyone done to deserve this?

He pushed those thoughts down, now wasn’t the time to ruminate on HYDRA’s cruelty, now was the time to get this girl out, if anything could be done for her.

He began undoing the thick leather straps holding her hands and ankles down, grimacing at the welts and sores on her joints. He was in the middle of undoing another wrist when she bolted up, shrieking her head off.

The very first thing she did was take a swing at him. It was easy for him to dodge, and he backed up several paces before setting down his gun and holding his hands up.

“Easy, easy! I’m getting you out of here, it’s okay.” He said, watching her scramble back on the table, still held by one ankle restraint. The one eye that could open was wide and frightened as she stared at him.

“Get away from me! Don’t you touch me! I’ll kill you, I will!!” She screamed, practically feral.

“I’m not gonna touch you, okay? I’m just trying to get you out of here and to somewhere safe.”

“Yeah, right, I’m not an idiot, they told me no one gets out of here!” She glared at him, distrust marking her features.

“I got out. Not out of this particular facility, but I got out.” He took a careful step towards her, hands still raised. “It’s gonna be alright, okay? I have a sedative with me, in my pocket. It’s like morphine, it’ll make you go to sleep. When you wake up, you’ll be out of this place. I promise.” He looked directly at her, hoping his eye contact would make her believe him. She sighed, and he could see just how tired she was under all the contusions and abrasions.

“Fine. What the hell, go ahead and give it to me.” She sat still and watched him, the fear barely masked in her eyes.

Bucky lowered one of his hands into a pocket on his gear, never taking his eyes off her while he rifled around for the packet containing the drug. The medicine came in the form of a shot, wrapped in a small plastic bag. When he took it out, he saw the woman flinch away from it.

“I know, I hate needles too. You never come out of these kinds of places without that feeling. It’ll be over quick though. Only a pinch.” He slowly moved closer to her, and she didn’t try to back away. She only held out her arm.

“What’s one more, right?” There might have been an attempt at levity there, but it was hard to see any sort of real feeling in it.

He felt nausea bubble up in his stomach again as he saw the track marks up and down her arm. It made him furious, to see this kind of thing done to people. _Don’t think of that right now_, he told himself as he pressed down on the shot, waiting until all the medicine had disappeared from the syringe.

It didn’t take long for the woman’s eyes to begin to close and her posture to slacken. She laid back down on the table, leaving Bucky room to undo the other restraint on her wrist. He’d just carefully gathered her into his arms when he heard foot steps down the hall.

He froze, eyeing his gun on the floor and wondering if he could still shoot straight while holding someone but he relaxed when he heard Steve’s voice.

“Hey, Buck, you still down here?”

“Yep.” He answered, walking out of the room with the girl in his arms. “There might be more, I haven’t checked the other rooms yet.”

“Yeah, yeah we’ll check, but you better go ahead and get her out of here.” Steve said, concern lining his features as he looked at the woman in Bucky’s arm.

“Right, I’ll meet you back up there.” He turned to leave, readjusting his grip on his charge. “Oh and Steve, can you make sure someone gets my gun? I kinda got my hands full.” Steve sighed, as his attention was drawn to the body on the floor.

“Thought you said this guy took a cyanide pill?”

“He did.”

“Then why is there a bullet wound on his head?” Bucky shrugged a little.

“One in the head, make sure they’re dead.”

“Geez, Buck.” He heard Steve say, but he was rewarded with a quiet bark of laughter from Natasha.

“He is right, about that at least.” Sam said, nudging Steve before walking into another opened room.

Bucky couldn’t see it walking away, but he was almost positive Steve rolled his eyes at that. Under any other condition he might’ve found it funny, but he was all too aware of the frail body in his arms as he made his way back up into daylight.

A small medical evacuation team was ready on standby outside the facility, waiting to transport any survivors to the Tower for treatment. Gently as he could, he eased her down onto the gurney, careful to mind her injuries. Once he was sure she was secure, he turned and walked back to the vehicle that had transported himself and the others.

Bucky ran his hand through his hair and tried to release some of the tension in his shoulders. He watched as the others filed up with four more people in their arms. He was too far away, but he was almost positive they looked in worse shape than the girl he’d just gotten out. It was unsure if any of them would last the night, let alone the next couple of days. If they made it past then… well he wasn’t sure, because no one had yet to live that long.

Soon enough, the rest of his teammates joined him at the van, piling in.

“Any of the others wake up?” Bucky asked, trying to keep his voice even and unbothered. The girls’ bruised face was still affecting him, and he didn’t like that.

“Two of them did. A man, who just seemed really disoriented and confused, and a woman, who didn’t say anything, just passed out after a few seconds.” Natasha said, shrugging a little bit and frowning. “We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

The rest of the ride back to the tower was quiet. Bucky felt his mind continually drift back to that girl. How fiercely she’d lunged at him, despite everything done to her. She was a fighter, and that might be the one thing that would save her from whatever HYDRA did to her. She had spirit, was willing to fight for her life the second she sensed freedom. It could be suicidal when dealing with HYDRA but that didn’t seem to matter to her. Get free or die trying.


End file.
